


Get Off My Lawn

by signifying_nothing



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Gen, the beginnings of a beautiful....friendship....????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 19:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7520059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signifying_nothing/pseuds/signifying_nothing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyungsoo isn't impressed with the hybrid cat he knows has been hiding out in his yard, but he's not a completely heartless asshole. Usually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Off My Lawn

**Author's Note:**

> pfff what the fuck am i doing

It wasn't that Kyungsoo hadn't seen a lot of stray cats. He had. They were peppered all over the city, long, lean creatures with short, sharp teeth and large ears, tails swatting about behind them while they crawled on all fours or squatted in doorways. The government could say what they wanted about the hybrids; Kyungsoo knew they were some kind of failed war experiment and he wanted _nothing_ to do with it. He wanted to stay in his house on the outskirts of the suburbs and mind his own goddamned business.

“I heard that you're supposed to kill them, if you see them,” one of his coworkers had said that morning. “Since they're unnatural and all.”

“What kind of asshole are you?” Park Jimin had asked, his arms crossed over his chest. “Who just goes around killing innocent people?”

“Well they aren't people, are they,” the man had said, grinning while Jimin looked at him the way a lit match looked at gasoline. Their boss had arrived before the conversation could go any further, but it didn't take a genius to see how the comment had upset Jimin, who was known for being a bit of a softie, anyway.

“Hey,” Kyungsoo had said when they sat down for lunch break, away from everyone else as usual. “Don't let him bother you, huh? He's an asshole.”

“Can I tell you something,” Jimin asked, his voice very small.

“Nothing illegal, I can't testify about what I don't know.” The joke was meant to make Jimin smile, but it didn't. Kyungsoo cocked his head. “What's wrong.”

“I... There's these two strays in my neighborhood,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I've been feeding them twice a day, you know, because... They're just so _thin._ I don't know what, what _happened_ to them or how they got out from wherever they were, but I just...” He took in a breath and Kyungsoo was reminded of how Jimin was the type to catch the bat flying around the office and take it outside, or collect the mousetraps and take them to the field out where he lived to let the little monsters loose. Simply put Jimin was _soft,_ but his compassion was second to none.

“And they're people, Kyungsoo. They have names, and feelings, they're not toys. They're people. And it makes me so angry when people say stuff like that, like what... What do they know, how can they? They've clearly never spoken to one of them before, and it...” Jimin trailed off, raking a hand through his hair and biting into his lip and Kyungsoo was reminded of why he liked Jimin so much in the first place: big heart, big smile, determined and steadfast. A good coworker, and a good friend.

“You are too good, you know that,” Kyungsoo said, smiling over at his younger companion. Jimin sighed. “Come on, eat. We can talk more about this later.”

They hadn't, but Kyungsoo suspected that tomorrow he'd be treated to photographs and stories like he had been when Jimin's niece and nephew had come to visit from Busan and they were all he could talk about for a week and a half, his dialect sweeping back into his throat like it had never been gone.

Still, as he sat on his back porch a mug of coffee in his hands he wondered what Jimin would do, as he caught sight of the positively _giant_ creature on the other side of his garden, laying low in the grass as though to keep from being seen and doing a very bad job of it, considering that Kyungsoo's fences were dark wood and the cat was cream and blond.

He stood up and headed back inside, closing the glass door and looking around his kitchen.

_I've been feeding them twice a day... They're just so thin._

Thin was definitely a good descriptor of the creature out on his lawn. He was broad, but too skinny, like a thin sweater on a hanger. His hair was filthy, even from the distance of the kitchen window, and his tail was puffed up in agitation. It was _almost_ cute, if the guy hadn't been probably six foot four, as compared to Kyungsoos five foot seven.

Kyungsoo wasn't _as good_ a person as Jimin, but he certainly wasn't any kind of asshole who would let someone else starve when he had food in his house. So he put together a plate—cold chicken breast and raw greens—and put it on the back porch before he left for work. He could relax a bit, knowing he hadn't been as much of an asshole as he could have.

~

As predicted, Jimin offered Kyungsoo his phone at lunch, leaning in to point out the pretty creatures in his photographs. They didn't look much more than twelve or thirteen: like kids. “That's Baekhyun,” he said. “And that's Taehyung, his younger brother. They're littermates.”

“Littermates?”

“Yeah,” Jimin put his chin in his hand as Kyungsoo kept looking back through the photographs, seeing them looking worse and worse with each picture, moving back in time. “Baekhyun said there were four of them, but I guess their other siblings got taken away somewhere... That's when I first finally got Taehyung to come up on the porch.”

Kyungsoo looked at the picture. Taehyung was dirty and skinny, his smile too big for his face, boxy and bright. He was wearing the remains of some band t-shirt and jeans that had probably been blue, once, with no shoes. His ears and tail were a smooth brown with dark points at the tip. He had big eyes, the color of green bottle-glass, and Kyungsoo felt himself smiling a little. No wonder Jimin had taken to feeding them, been so enamoured: who didn't want to take care of such a sweet looking creature?

“And the other one?” Jimin shifted the photo and Kyungsoo frowned a little. The second cat's picture was taken from some distance away, and his right arm was tucked up close to his chest like he was favoring it. “Baekhyun, right?”

“Yeah,” Jimin nodded. “He had a really bad injury, there was this huge chunk of glass in his arm, right, so... I mean it took forever for him to come up and let me look at it. Getting it out was pretty easy for me, but...” It went without saying that it was because Jimin was strong and healthy. “He's just as sweet as Taehyung now, if not a little more.” He took back his phone when Kyungsoo offered it.

“They're cute,” Kyungsoo said.

“Yeah,” Jimin nodded, tickled into a blush with all the joy of a happy schoolboy, or a father talking about his wife and newborn. “They are.”

~

Kyungsoo wished he could say the same of the cat that had been prowling around his house for the few weeks. The meals he'd been leaving out were certainly being eaten, but all he ever caught of the creature was a glance of his tail or ears while he laid in the shaded sun under the bushes. Kyungsoo wasn't going to chase him.

But he hadn't seen him for a few days when the storm started rolling in and it was supposed to be a bad one: hail and sleet and freezing rain, possibly deadly winds. Kyungsoo was grateful for his buried powerlines and his generator, but he couldn't just... Leave the cat outside when he knew what was coming. If he was still around, Kyungsoo at least had to warn him.

“Hey,” he called out into the backyard. “Hey, there's a big storm coming! I'm gonna leave the door open, okay? Come in so you don't get caught in it!”

With his good deed for the evening done, Kyungsoo headed back inside and went to check all the windows, all the doors. He was in the kitchen when the hail started coming down, and he chewed idly on the inside of his cheek as he made himself a mug of tea to go sit down with. Normally he'd be watching television or working in the basement, but he'd rather be in the living room, watching the storm in the streetlights.

But then there was a pathetic little whine at the back door and after a moment of serious consideration Kyungsoo got up—entirely too calm—and went to open it.

There he was, that cream and blond cat, with a big cut on his head and what looked like clawmarks in his back. Kyungsoo hesitated but moved back to let him crawl inside, watched him collapse to the floor, panting quietly. He looked like he'd just gotten out of a barfight or something.

He thought about just leaving him there. Leaving him to take care of himself on the cool tile floor but Kyungsoo wasn't that much of an asshole even on his bad days, so he went to get his first aid box and turned on the overhead light. The cat flinched, squinting his eyes closed and whining when Kyungsoo put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on,” Kyungsoo said. “Let me take a look at it.” The cat stayed on the floor but turned his head and Kyungsoo hissed in a breath at the wound on his head. “Jesus,” he said, shifting. “Come on, put your head here, let me see.”

Kyungsoo managed to get the cat into a better position, head resting on his thigh, so he could push back his blond hair and start to clean up around the cut. It was inflamed, red at the edges and pussing and the cat gave a pathetic whine when Kyungsoo wiped and dabbed at it with witch hazel and hydrogen peroxide. “Shh,” he found himself saying. “Shh, it's okay, huh? I'm almost done... This is gonna hurt, though, so. Don't claw me or anything.”

He pressed the alcohol pad down and the cat shrieked, twisted and jerked back but didn't wrench too far away. Kyungsoo did his best to soothe. “It's okay, it's okay, I'm done, it's done. Let me get a bandage on it and you're done, I promise.”

Kyungwoo wasn't sure if it was because the cat was a cat, or because he was crying like a small child, but after he'd wiped neosporin over the cut and put the bandage on, he let his hands move through the blond hair and murmured nonsense reassurances just to make some comforting noise. “Do you want to take a bath or something,” he asked, and the cat hesitated before he looked up, and Kyungsoo, despite himself, felt his breath catch in his throat.

His eyes were dark, smooth brown, his mouth small and cheekbones high. He was _devastatingly_ beautiful, not like Taehyung or Baekhyun, who were both cute and soft, no. This cat was... Well. If the situation had been different Kyungsoo might have gone so far as to say he was his _type_. But the situation was that the cat was injured and filthy, and Kyungsoo was not the type of asshole to take advantage over someone else in a situation like that.

He _did_ lead the cat to the first floor bathroom. Did run hot water while the rain came down, did make sure that he had privacy to bathe until he was done. “Hopefully these fit,” Kyungsoo said, putting a pair of briefs and basketball shorts on the counter, a pajama shirt Minseok had given him that was far, far too large. “I'll be in the living room when you're done.”

Kyungsoo had every intention of staying awake. He did. He was going to show the cat to the spare bedroom, explain that they would talk about this in the morning, and let him sleep on his own. It was certainly _not_ in his plans to fall asleep on the couch, one arm tucked behind his head. Even _less_ his plan to wake up disoriented and confused at nearly three in the morning to the sound of hammering rain with a heavy body laying across his, a head on his chest. On the one hand it felt nice. On the other, it was grossly inappropriate and as Kyungsoo sat up to berate the creature sprawled on him he felt his voice die in his throat.

The cat was asleep, one hand curled up close to his face, his ear over Kyungsoo's heart. He looked like a small child, little huffs of breath through his nose. Shit. Kyungsoo had a weakness for cute things, it was part of why he was friends with Park Jimin. Shit.

“Come on,” he said, nudging the cat's shoulder. “Come on, I gotta go to bed.” There was a protesting mewl and Kyungsoo wiggled out from under the heavy cat, panting with relief. “I'm gonna go upstairs,” he said. “You get some sleep.” The cat glared up at him through his bangs and as Kyungsoo made his way up to his bedroom he was keenly aware of the fact that the cat was following him. He was _not_ stealthy.

“Go to sleep,” Kyungsoo grumbled, opening his bedroom door. “Don't even think of following me.”

But ten minutes later there the cat was, up on the bed on top of the covers, body curled up, head tucked into his arms, and Kyungsoo was just too tired to care. Let the fucker sleep there, he'd deal with it in the morning.

Maybe.

 


End file.
